“You can master the art of living, even in a concentration camp, if you learn how to use humor, apathy, spirituality, acceptance, and hold on to the threads that make life important to you, no matter what anyone else says or does to you; in spite of the injustice of it all.”

For the past few days I have been particularly enamoured by Vanessa Mae – I was a fan of her when she was really popular in the late 90s, but I somehow forgot about her existence until a colleague started playing some classical music and somehow it sparked off a conversation about music and talent. I tried to search for some youtube videos to show my colleague and stumbled upon this video of Vanessa Mae playing “Red Hot” with the Bratislava Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Watching that video made my spine tingle and I felt this indescribable feeling which is a mix of awe, inspiration, passion and something else I cannot put my finger upon. The feeling of being incredibly blessed to be able to witness such a moment in my life (thanks, youtube!) + the feeling of being reminded of how much joy it is to see a fellow human being at the top of her craft. The energy, confidence and charm exuded because she knows she is capable of enthralling those who watch her. In that performance she was carrying a very visible light within her.

I was amazed that she wrote “Red Hot” when she was 14 and also she managed to make it sound so awesome with a Symphony Orchestra. She was 18 in that video. (Disclaimer: I have no classical music knowledge whatsoever.)

I was curious whether she still performed with the same exuberance now at the age of 33. It is one thing to be energetic and enthusiastic at 18 and an entirely different to do the same when you reach your 30s (I can attest to that). Watching her perform the Toccata & Fugue in D Minor in 2009, Storm (2009) and Sabre Dance (2011) only increased my level of awe. If she was young and attractive before, she is now elegant and beautiful. There is more intensity in her play now and she seems to prefer using her acoustic violin instead of the white electric violin so famously associated with her. I don’t know much about violins and classical music in general but it seems amazing to me that she’s able to make Storm sound even more awesome on an acoustic violin.

Other personal favourites include: Storm at the Classical Brit Awards 2000 & Storm at the Paralympics 2002 (with her translucent electric violin). By the way, each time she plays Storm there is almost always a variation in the arrangement and play.

The price of success

There is always a price to pay for success and all of us have to learn to make tradeoffs in exchange for what we want. I was remarking to my colleague that she must have had a tiger mom to reach that level of polish when she was so young. I was hoping to be proven wrong, but a quick search on google revealed that till this day, both mother and daughter are still not on talking terms. I got drawn to watch the BBC documentary, “The Making of Me” where Vanessa Mae sought to understand whether her success was nature vs nurture.

Her mother came up as a constant theme throughout the documentary, with Vanessa revealing that her mom often made it clear to her as a young child that her love came attached with conditions. While making the documentary, BBC reached out to her mother in hope that she could shed some light on Vanessa’s childhood and perhaps be a starting point for their reconciliation. Unfortunately her mother declined through an email, stating that “My daughter is nearly 30. That part of my life is well and truly over.”, this broke my heart because even though Vanessa was smiling throughout and she made it sound like she expected this – but I somehow feel her heart was broken into a thousand pieces when she received that email.

She obviously credits her mom for her success knowing very well she would never have made it without her mom’s strict discipline but I empathise with her perfectly when she said she did not want her mom as a manager, she simply wanted her mom to be a mother – something she felt her mother never seemed to be satisfied with.

I have had a difficult relationship with my own mother for the first 2.5 decades of my life but I have been blessed with the opportunities to understand why it was that way – thus inadvertently healing my wounds inflicted when growing up. Though I must say, even though my wounds are sufficiently healed, I have never forgotten how they had felt like on my young mind and heart as a child. I wanted so much for my family to love me for me, not because I was a straight A student as a kid or that I could become a lawyer or a doctor. It took me a long while to build my self-esteem all over again, to slowly let go of the baggage I have carried with me throughout my life. (Eventually I also understood that was their way of loving me. To my mom, if you’re reading this, just know that I love you, but it is important for me to be able to write about this.)

However, now I use them to propel me in the right direction as my main source of motivation – I work really hard now for the hope that one day I can use this empathy and experience to help kids who go into depression or despair because they were not allowed to be themselves. There is this general perception within the youth in Singapore (and probably everywhere else to a certain extent) that they cannot pursue what they love because it is wrong or hopeless. I hope to be able to change this perception, even if it is a tiny bit.

I sincerely wish they will reconcile one day, for I remain in hope that Vanessa’s mother will come to realise the bond between mother and daughter is so much deeper than her daughter’s success as a violin player.

Using Vanessa Mae as my inspiration

Watching her play is a joy and a blessing. If I can have my way I will do anything to catch her live the next time she has a tour. It seems I have to wait for quite a while because now her goal is to qualify as a skier for the 2014 Olympics. No I am not kidding. She doesn’t seem to have any tour plans for this year or next until the Olympics.

I see her concentration, focus and intensity when she plays and I think to myself – I want to be able to have those qualities when I work. I see her joy with her music, band and audience and I think to myself, I want to feel that way when I do my work. I see her energy and enthusiasm being so contagious and I think to myself, that is how I want people to feel if they see me work.

I want my work, my writing, my life to share a common thread of joy. I don’t know how but I am going to try. Joy is a new concept to me, to be honest. I want to be able to infect people with my burning desire to change the world, to be the change I want. I want them to look into my eyes and see nothing but love and joy for my existence, my work and my dreams.

I do not want my life to be motivated by a fear of missing out. This is my lesson learnt from Vanessa Mae, all of these feelings inspired by watching her play. That was probably not her intention, but seeing her play I understood her enthusiasm and joy when playing was not due to her fear of her mother or her desire for success, but it is obvious to me she genuinely loved her music. She wanted to do all these tours even till now, record the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky violin concertos at the age of 13, because she wanted to do it for herself and her love for music.

‘The violin is my voice.. The violin is the way I communicate with people.’

‘the most i have to say is not through speaking but through music, and obviously the violin is my voice.’ – Vanessa Mae

I find her intense passion and dedication to her music very inspiring and I am slowly beginning to realise the greatest inspiration and motivation for my work do not come from my own industry, instead it comes sources almost completely unrelated like watching the youtube video of Vanessa Mae playing.

I think the fact that I have discovered a greater sense of purpose and an external source of inspiration outside my industry is significant in keeping me focused and sane during those times I was the most fatigued.

Before writing this entry I went through the comments I have gotten from the readers of this blog for the past few years. I haven’t read them for quite a while and I was glad to do so once again. They re-enforced my belief and validated my decision to keep my writing personal and authentic. I struggle at times to keep a balance between my profession and my personal self, but I am discovering gradually that they’re intrinsically entwined –  that the more I can cohesively marry the two, the greater progress I make in both my work and my life.

I would like to conclude in this entry by expressing the gratitude for those people who have been faithfully reading my long-winded writing for years and to those of you who have sent me comments and emails – I am reminded time and time again that there are plenty of things in this world that have intangible value, sometimes these things may seem to have no value from a common perspective but they are in truth, priceless in the long run.

There are just some things money or success cannot buy, and one of these is the ability and capacity to move another human being’s heart.

It is ironic to me, because I have never loved nor believed in myself very much – in fact, the love for myself was so low that I contemplated my life multiple times.

But for some reason I am always blessed. Blessed because there were always people who may not have the chance to know me very well personally, but they’ve looked into my work and writing – perhaps that is the best form of getting to know me, because all of me is really there to see. Whether on this blog, my work, Facebook or Twitter. I loved being able to express myself in words even if people see it as a passing social media fad.

So, almost coming in a full circle, I seek not to express gratitude in person or a phone call to people like Lucian, but rather in a lengthy blog post like this one. For this is where I can pour my truest emotions forward. In words. He and some others, would appreciate that this is the finest expression of my feelings I can ever give as a person.

Most of you would know that I had been rather introverted in the early part of my independent design career. I have had full clients and projects without even meeting them once. I was not convinced I could express myself the way I wanted to in person, I was not convinced people would understand me if they saw me in person. Thus the hermithood went on for two years. I would not even go out for a casual coffee. @andycroll and @skinnylatte can attest to that, having sent me countless emails trying to get me out of my carefully constructed shell.

It took a life-changing event. It was the AWARE saga in 2009 and being part of that flicked a switch on in me. There are people who care about the world, they’re just scattered in different places. I cannot never advocate a cause on my own, I realised. I needed to find more people who care.

Even if that means I have to start opening myself up to meeting everyone, and in life, almost everything exists in duality. If you want to find value in social connections, you will have to put up with the noise surrounding it as well.

I took baby steps. Not so baby in retrospect. Because I went from one coffee with @andycroll and @jussi, then with @skinnylatte, to going to Barcamp 2009 alone. To an event with 200 odd people alone.

I don’t know how I found the courage, I was served by my burning desire to find people who care. Care about what, you may ask. You will know what I am describing if you’ve met one of these people. The people with the same burning desire in their eyes to find other people who care. It sounds like a multi-level-network lol but it is true. Strength in numbers, exponential results when you put a group of people with the same vision together.

It was at that Barcamp where I met one guy who would almost singlehandedly change the course of my life. I was trying to get a mini cream puff on a huge paper plate – and this voice appeared behind my years, “You sure that is enough?”

That guy was Steven Goh, whom within minutes of us meeting, would be the person handing me tons of support, encouragement, self-belief to me in the course of the next two years. Before meeting Steven I was more of a visual designer, I never thought interaction design was my core strength or that I would be really interested in it, but he made me rethink that.

Working with Steven made me realise what I really wanted to do, was to design user interfaces. I truly loved graphic design, I loved grids and typography, I loved the feel of paper. But nothing is actually quite the same as being able to touch people with an interface. To potentially be able to see a smile coming out of a user’s face after an interaction.

As I came out of my shell I got more involved with the web community in Singapore. I had frequent exchanges with the web community on Twitter, we all came to somewhat love each other. It is actually through Twitter whom I’ve met some of my best connections. People like Lucian, whom I was a follower of his blog since pre-blogger days but only really had the chance to interact with, on Twitter.

Through Twitter I’ve also met @jasonong, we have shared several intense conversations on how we would like to improve the community. He walks the talk, as he tirelessly organized several key tech events in Singapore.

It was during this period that I’ve also gotten to know significant people in my life like Danny Tan, for it was with his encouragement and advice that I made several key decisions. Through him I’ve met Min Xuan, whom upon meeting up we both knew we’ve found a kindred spirit, and she was the first person who said to me, “Winnie, you *have* to go to SF. You would love it there.” There have been tons of people who would sell me the Valley dream, but none of them were as insistent nor as convincing as her. lol. I am sure she would seek to differ on my version of events.

These people, along with many others, believed in me at a time when I wouldn’t even believe in myself.

There are a few things I really, really want to do.

1. 1. Within this life time, to do whatever I can to advocate education reform. I see bright young minds being carelessly mistreated by the system and this never fails to break my heart.
2. 2. Closely tied to no.1, I want to raise awareness for mental illnesses. To reduce the social stigma faced by mental illness sufferers and to make non-sufferers understand this is not something you can simply ‘choose’. Or ‘pull yourself up’. You have no idea why people want to be suicidal unless you’ve been there yourself.
3. 3. Tied to no.1 again, I wish to create a network of outliers in Singapore (first), who will be sharing their personal stories. I want people to know, it is really okay to be different. To be yourself. To pursue dreams. That there are many of us who went ahead to pursue ours and we’re not suffering as predicted by the mainstream. In fact, it is the opposite.
4. 4. To raise awareness for animal advocacy groups in Singapore, but this is something I realised is an issue that cannot be truly fixed unless we go through a social reform, because the respect of other living animals is not something that can be instilled by a few campaigns.
5. 5. This is more general but I would hope to personally be able to reduce discrimination towards any minority in every way possible.

So here I am, telling you what truly drives me forward. Why I am leaving this country temporarily. Not for a chance of a better life as some of you may thank, but a chance of a better me. Someone who would possess the inner will, strength and belief to carry out her causes. I am far from being that person. But as some of you have already known, spending 3 months away has already contributed a tremendous positive change in me. Not externally, but internally.

I wrote back in my email to Lucian, while thanking him for the beautiful letter he has written for me, I also said – that I have no idea how to repay this debt of gratitude to all of you who had given me so much support for the past few years.

But one thing I can and I will do. To try to be strong and be the person some of you have envisioned me to be. To be that person I think I can be. To be crazy enough to attempt to do all those things I have listed above. To be relentless in my pursuit for a better humanity.

I have an ironic love for the world. Most of it makes me wonder why I bother to be alive and part of it. There’s a tiny, tiny portion of it, which I hold on very tightly to. That one tiny spark which I believe, lives in all of us. That connects us together.

That one single tiny spark, most of the time very fleeting, but it is what that keeps me alive. Keeps me in love with humanity. Keeps me wanting to be a better person.

For all the debate about Ayn Rand, I have come to believe that the greatest gift to humanity one can ever give, is to be truly yourself. To realise your fullest potential as a human being. Everyone has special innate gifts. As I keep on telling people about Steve Jobs, anybody is capable of giving money. But he gave us tools to empower ourselves. Those who have worked with strays will know. The answer to the issue is never to build more shelters, but to change how people perceive animals so we wouldn’t even need shelters.

I know I am incredibly blessed. And if you’re still here reading this blog post, thank you. For you have been patient with all 1600 words of incoherence. But I hope you’ll get my gist.

This is my way of saying thank you for now and I hold this little hope in the future, that I will be capable of saying thank you in the ways that will make this world a better place.

P.S. Special thanks goes out to startups in Singapore which defined my early work: fabrikade, comiqs, jamiq, zopim, e27. Please pardon me if you didn’t get a mention in my rush to get this post published. Email me! I’ll buy you coffee!

I was pro-Windows when I first got into computers, at a pretty late age – 15. I was assembling PCs on my own and I loved tearing computers apart. I first came across the Mac a while later. That was in the dark ages of OS8 – 9. I’ll be honest and say that I hated the Mac OS before it was version X. I was used to the “Start” menu and the multi-tasking taskbar on Windows and I didn’t find the “Finder” user-friendly. It seemed harder to switch applications.

Back then, I couldn’t understand why would the fanboys pay 3 grand for a computer that didn’t encourage people to tear apart and the usability of the OS sucked.

A couple of years later, the first version of OS X was released. I had to use a mac for one of my jobs, so I did. Reluctantly. The more I used it, the more it made sense, the more I fell in love with in.

From the very first moment I touched OS X, it was another short few months that I decided to buy my first iMac. I was not doing financially well back then but I really couldn’t resist the beauty.

I don’t know about you, but after using Windows for so much of my early life, I was in love with the type-rendering on OS X. I know how some people complain it is too blurry, but for me that was sheer beauty.

Applications like Quicksilver made me fall in love even more. It was no longer about beauty in the aesthetic sense, but actually comprehending how much more productive I get on the mac because everything seems to be a quick keystroke away. I think the defining application for me was Panic’s Coda. I knew it then, there is no way I could find this sort of beauty and functionality combined on Windows.

Till today, sadly, it is still true. I have moved on to Espresso and Textmate, but I doubt there is any app on Windows remotely comparable to what these can do. I cannot re-iterate how much difference it made to development just to be looking at apps like Coda everyday. The subtlety in the menu dividers, the level of detail in the UI feedback. I am serious when I tell people now, if you are a designer, you cannot *not* use a mac.

I became an apple fan-girl and with each magical device released like the iphone, my love and desire for Apple just grew, and grew.

But I still didn’t realise the true impact of Jobs until a couple of years ago.

I read this entire write up of Steve Jobs and there it was, written in detail, how he brought us the Personal Computer during the time when there were only mainframes and business computers. He saw the Mouse at some obscure Xerox research lab and refined it for our use and input. Again, he saw the GUI at Xerox and implemented it, even better on the Mac.

We know Windows copied the GUI of the Mac.

So if not for Jobs. Where will I be right now? We *may* still be using DOS, designers may not exist much because what can we design in the command prompt? Maybe there will still be a GUI, just like there had been smart phones before the iphone, but will it even be remotely as influential as the iphone has been?

Consider the number of times Jobs had redefined the way we look at things. He brought the PC to us, he gave us the iPod, he made the iTunes eco-system possible – and now the App Store eco-system. As much as some of us hate how they take a 30% cut, but sorry, now there’s tons of obscure developers having a real chance at selling their apps.

He also breathed new life into publishing with the iPad. I remember thinking to myself, I don’t ever buy comics anymore, but when I got my iPad, I was lured into buying them again. He made consumer video/audio editing possible and easy.

Would we even have the Android in its current incarnation if not for the birthing of the iPhone? Will we be able to be wowed by the Kindle Fire? I am not so sure.

I just cannot imagine how my life would be if there was no Steve Jobs. And you know how everyone is now talking about how important design is to a product? I think releasing a product like the iphone into the mainstream market was key to raising everyone’s expectations for design. Back then only the Apple crowd cared about design. Now that the mainstream market got a taste of how delightful great product design can be, everyone wants to have more of it.

You can no longer build an unusable ugly app just built with tons of functionality and hope for it to be a great success. Apple raised the bar. Many times.

I am in an era whereby being a designer is an increasingly respected profession – back in the days when I was out of high school, I was told I would have no viable future as designer. How things have changed. I have no illusion whom I attribute that to.

I know and believe death is only but a transition, but it doesn’t make it hurt less.

I love you, Steve Jobs. I don’t know about the others, but I know with certainty that you’ve changed my world. I know the best way to return that gratitude is to continue striving for what you’ve taught me and others. He wasn’t only a tech genius, for he inspired countless people with his individuality, beliefs and determination:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”